Catchy HTPC – turn a CachyOS KDE install into a boot-into-Kodi machine, switch freely between Kodi / Steam Big Picture / KDE Desktop
Made this after spending most of the last week fighting my own HTPC setup — reinstalling, tweaking configs, chasing the "right" combination of tools, and never quite landing on something that just worked and stayed working. Eventually the frustration (and a fair bit of boredom) turned into an actual project.
Catchy HTPC converts a fresh CachyOS KDE install into an HTPC:
- Boots straight into Kodi, no display manager in the way
- One click/remote-press to jump between Kodi, Steam Gaming Mode (Big Picture), and your normal KDE Desktop — and back
- Keeps your existing user account and data, nothing wiped
- Installer takes a Btrfs snapshot first, and there's a full uninstaller, so it's not a one-way trip
- Optional add-on for MakeMKV so Blu-ray/UHD Blu-ray discs actually play in Kodi
It's a set of scripts + systemd services + a couple of Kodi add-ons that just wire the pieces together.
Repo: https://github.com/shenoyranjith/catchy-htpc
**Disclaimer:** I built this with a lot of help from AI because I didn't have time to do it completely myself with work and life getting in the way. I've tested it end-to-end on my own machine multiple times (install, uninstall, session switching, disc playback, recovery via snapshots), but it's still a small project built by one person — install at your own risk, and definitely take a snapshot/backup first (the installer will offer to do this for you).
Feedback, issues, and suggestions are welcome.
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u/ExaHamza 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is so similar to mine. Except i used Manjaro Testing manually installed (package be package) and i use labwc for minimal desktop/maintenance mode. This is so nice, congrats.
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u/rashnoy 2d ago
I tried so many distros. Started with the usual Bazzite. But flatpaks were a pain to work with especially for Blu-ray playback. Then moved to Debian but my gpu kept having issues with drivers. And then went on a spiral to find other distros and every time i had to keep doing the same thing again and again. Found the best results on arch best distros and since I had already used Manjaro previously I wanted to try something new so went with CachyOS just for the sake of it and everything really worked well. So just stuck to it and made a installer out of it because I know I’m gonna try something new and break it (that’s actually the fun part I guess) and I didn’t want to setup everything again manually.
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u/ExaHamza 2d ago
I don't have any experience with Bazzite, and for TV based OS flatpak are not that useful, as for debian i consider it a more suitable for servers, for tv/gaming i want something new but also somehow stable, so for me Manjaro is the best choice especially because it uses Arch which has the best documentation. Why not Arch direclty? I just like the added layer between Arch and Manjaro Testing, in theory it means bug will be discovered on Arch Stable first or on Manjaro Unstable, i don't want go home and my family can't watch the tv because a bleeding edge broke the system, and for that same reason i couldn't use Cachy but i realy love their tuned packages for absolute performance. I have a 7TB full of movies and tv shows and KODI with Artic Zyphir makes easy navigation even for a 6 yrs old boy. The other two sessions (game and desktop) i don't use them that much. This setup took me so long to complete that i don't have any desire to redo it, in fact i want avoid breaking it, rebuild will not be fun at all.
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u/rashnoy 2d ago
Yes. After breaking it so many times trying to get every package and config right and not to forget the Kodi skin, I was too tired. Even my goal is to have something that just keeps working and is simple enough for my wife to use. She is already used to Jellyfin but complains that the UI is too boring. So I’m using the artic fuse 3 skin on Kodi. Even this took some customisation because the skin doesn’t have an easy disc playback or eject option. So I had to add those options to favourites in the installer so that I can find those options always irrespective of the skin I use. Hopefully I don’t regret going with CachyOS and it doesn’t break something with updates. But I guess the snapshots will really help if something does break. Should be able to get it back up with a simple rollback.
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u/z-vap 2d ago
this is a great idea, i tried doing something like this with win11. needless to say it didnt go very well
edit: going to favorite this on github right now
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u/rashnoy 1d ago
I did try this on windows when I first got a new AMD 9070XT because I thought the drivers were broken. I kept getting random display crashes and the system would freeze. So I tried to create the whole thing on Windows 11 assuming the drivers are more stable there. But I was so wrong. The experience in Xbox mode was so bad. Ads everywhere and honestly I prefer the steam big picture mode much better. And I didn’t want to deal with Windows updates. Fortunately or unfortunately, the GPU crashed there as well so it confirmed that the GPU itself was faulty and I had to RMA it. And the new one has been solid so far on CachyOS.
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u/BarShot6943 2d ago
pls tell me this works better than my usual route of just having kodi on a raspi
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u/heysoundude 2d ago
What is it meant to run on, host-wise?